MARGATE – After nearly 10 years of wrangling, the city has jumped a big hurdle in getting a citywide dredging permit.
According to engineer Ed Dennis Jr. of Remington & Vernick Engineers, the NJ Department of Environmental Protection has notified the city that it will accept an updated survey and sampling data previously sent to the DEP and no further environmental testing will be required.
“That was the thumbs up that we needed from the DEP,” he told the Board of Commissioners Jan. 2.
The previously submitted sampling data will now be sent to the NJ Department of Transportation, which controls Dredge Hole #89 located in Atlantic City.
“Now the dominoes can start to fall,” Dennis said. “This was the response we were waiting and hoping for, and we finally got it.”
The DOT application is seeking approval to use Dredge Hole #89 for disposal, but the city also has an alternate site it would like to use that would save on the cost of dredging and disposing dredge material. The city jointly owns Shelter Island with the City of Ventnor, which is much closer and would eliminate the need to truck or pump dredging materials to the Atlantic City site.
Dennis said once the dredging permit is approved, the city would be able to amend its permit to identify Shelter Island as the alternate disposal site. Amending the permit would be a much quicker process than getting the dredging permit, he said.
Dredging Beach Thorofare over the next five to 10 years will not only improve safety for boaters maneuvering the backbay area but will also benefit homeowners who have docks behind their bayfront homes.
When the DOT approves the permit, bayfront residents who have homes with riparian rights will be able to dredge their boat slips and canals without having to apply for their own dredging permit. The citywide permit will save them time and money.
Both towns approved an interlocal agreement in March 2022 to equally share the capacity available in a 28-foot-deep hole, named Dredge Hole #90 located on Shelter Island, a former sewer plant that was excavated in the early 1920s to raise the elevation of land in Ventnor Heights and the upper end of Margate.
If the city is permitted to use the 4.5-acre Shelter Island site, filling the hole with dredge material will restore habitat where marine life can thrive. Currently, the hole is too deep to sustain any marine life.
The dredge hole has the capacity to hold 470,000 cubic yards of dredge material. Margate needs about 166,000 cubic yards for its 5- to 10-year dredging project.
Ventnor Commissioner Lance Landgraf previously said Ventnor currently has no need to obtain a dredging permit at this time because most of the backbay in Ventnor is controlled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for keeping the Intracoastal Waterway navigable. For any potential future use, Ventnor agreed to reimburse Margate at a rate of 33 cents per cubic yard within 60 days of Ventnor placing materials in the hole up to 235,000 cubic yards.
Margate started the process of obtaining a dredging permit back in 2015 with the hopes that a long-term dredging project would preserve existing marina businesses along Amherst Avenue, help the city maintain its navigational waters and preserve property values for bayfront property owners.
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